For another look at the players who make up the bright future for Carolina Hurricanes hockey, please check out the first edition of ‘The Pipeline’ which will cover the 18 Hurricanes prospects not at the NHL or AHL level. You can find that HERE.
After a rough 0-3 start to the 2015-16 season, rather than going another time in on trying to analyze what is wrong and fix it, I am instead going the sunshine and optimism route and will take a shot at building out the 2018-19 Canes roster.
The defense is maybe the easiest to do from the players already in-house, so let’s start there:
Noah Hanifin – Justin Faulk:
Haydn Fleury – Brett Pesce
Jaccob Slavin – Ryan Murphy
Also in the mix: Trevor Carrick, Roland McKeown.
The blue line is easily the most exciting part about this exercise because even if every player does not work out (which they will not), there seem to be enough options already in the system for this part of the plan to work.
In net, the Canes are light on options who could be ready in 3 years, but the most likely player in the system would be a then 22-year old Alex Nedeljkovic. That is young for a goalie, so it seems more likely that the Canes will still be using a veteran goalie. Eddie Lack would need to be re-signed to make that season.
Forward is much tougher because the Canes just do not have that many near ready forward prospects. But let’s try anyway:
Jeff Skinner – Elias Lindholm – 2016 1st rounder
Eric Staal – Jordan Staal – 2016 1st rounder
Sebastian Aho – Victor Rask – Sergey Tolchinsky
Brock McGinn – Nicolas Roy – _______
The thing that jumps out when trying to build forward lines from futures is how light the Canes are in terms of wing prospects. A bit of luck with who is availability and where the picks fall for the 2016 NHL draft could help that.
Oh the questions this raises…Will Eric Staal be here at all? Can Jeff Skinner round out his all-around game to make him a legitimate top-line forward? Or is he destined to be a dynamic scorer on a lower line? What do you think about my slotting of the blue line?
It is difficult to say how soon, but I continue to think that the future is bright for the Carolina Hurricanes.
Go Canes!
